This week we welcomed the arrival of two Italian internationals to the club, both arrived with very impressive CVs. Both signings seem to have lifted the mood around the club and are expected to give the playing squad a much needed boost. Whilst I am not sure that our dealings in this window are over, despite what Sam has said (if we can move on some players as well-Diarra or Maiga perhaps), I hope the double Italian signing has the same impact as Harston and Kitson when they arrived in a relegation battle. Of course that is putting a lot of pressure on the duo but both have played at the highest level in Italy where pressure is all around them, I just pray they have no problem adapting to our league. I have always been curious on how our international fans, with no obvious family link, become supporters of our great club. One of the most prominent international supporters groups on twitter is West Ham Italy @martelliditalia. Their support and dedication to the claret and blue shirt is very impressive, made even more so when Antonio Nocerino said that he knew all about the club from the Italian West Ham fans. I thought it would be a good time to send them over some questions to find out more about the fan club.
1) How did the West Ham Italy group first start?
The group was created in 2011 by Nicola Morosini, after some months thanks to the contribution of Roberto Salvatori and Valerio Accorsi we begin to recruit Hammers fans on facebook and we started to grow.
2) How did you all become fans of the mighty Hammers?
It depends on the age of the members ,the oldest of us are hammers fans from the 80’s when the only way to get some news was to read some weekly magazines or watch some rare images on tv channels. Most of the us are people that grew up when the internet was up and English football was broadcasted on Italian channels, so they started to follow West Ham by watching football matches and reading news on the internet. In most of the cases the first trip to see a match at Upton park was enough to become hammers for life.
3) How many members do you have and where are you mainly based?
We have around 2000 people subscribed to the facebook group and 200 members with the group card. We are mainly based in the north/centre of Italy but we also have members in the South and in Sardinia.
4) How regularly do you meet?
We try to be present at every home game and in most of the away games, we also have members with season tickets. Normally we are present in 90% of games in the season, the people that don’t go to London meet in some pubs in their town to watch the game on TV. We call these meetings “match pints” and there are almost 2-3 people for every game.
5) What are the age ranges of the members?
We have 4-5 members over 40, the rest of the age range is between 24 and 28.
6) How many games do you attend a season?
Most of the members go to London 2 times a year but there are people who have reached 10 games a year including home and away.
7) What is the best game that you have been to?
Surely the Wembley final against Blackpool where we had 33 people attending. Another great game was the 3-1 victory against Chelsea and we had 15 on that occasion.
8) I read on the official website that Antonio Nocerino said he knew all about the Hammers from the Italian West Ham fans, how did this make you feel?
Of course we were really proud of it, we have made a great job of our twitter account!
9) What can the West Ham fans expect from Antonio Nocerino? Will he make the Italian World Cup squad?
We think he will do a good job in the midfield and that he will score some goals by going in the spaces of the forward. He scored a lot of this kind of goals for AC Milan and we hope he can do the same for us. We think he can make the Italian squad if he plays well for us.
10) What can we also expect from the other Italian signing Marco Borriello?
We expect goals and a lot of hard work for the team in and around the box.
11) How do you see the rest of the season turning out?
If the injuries stop tormenting us we can play well and stay in the Premiership, don’t forget that we had one of the best defences in the league before the Reid injury.
12) What is your feelings on the move to the Olympic stadium?
We ’d prefer to stay at Upton Park because we choose to support the team for the particular atmosphere that you feel every time you go to Green Street. We understand that many supporters would like the team to become richer and compete for the maximum level but we ’d prefer the old way and stay at Upton Park.
13) Finally, what do you think the score will be in the England V Italy World Cup game?
It’s difficult to make a guess, there are 5 months before the game and in football that is an eternity, everything can change.
It was a very diplomatic way to end the questions and I was very grateful to Nicola Morosini who took the time to answer the questions for me. One thing that is for certain is that the international supporter’s groups clearly play a big part in spreading the name and history of the club and I look forward to seeing them at future games! Here’s to a successful week (both on the transfer front and the pitch-hopefully!!) COYI
